Guest Blog: 100/100 by Djandor

Hello, everyone. My name is Jacqui, and I am a musician and sibling to Randor. My boyfriend calls me ‘Djandor’, so we’ll go with that. Why not.

This may be a little longer than some of the broski’s posts, but it’s cuz I have a serious complaint. In honor of WTF’s 100th music post, I will guest blog about TIME Magazine’s 100 Best Songs of All Time that they put out on October 24th.

I wish you could have heard my sigh.

Originally I was going to go through it and replace all of the songs I thought should be replaced, then replace the musicians with musicians I would have put in instead. I realized before I even started this task that that would be ridiculously impossible because I disagree with a majority of their list.

I don’t know which hipster they asked to write this, but it was NOT someone who actually knew (good) music (okay it looks like it was a staff-contributed thing). To be fair, Rolling Stone’s list already came out, and it is way better (even some of THOSE songs I disagree with), and maybe they just wanted to be different… Here is a link to Rolling Stone’s list

The only song from the 2010s on TIME’s list is a song and artist I’ve never even heard of. Probably because I don’t listen to a lot of popular music these days because a lot of it is sincerely crap. Okay so I just YouTubed it… yeah, awful. I mean not awful, she’s a good dancer and whatever, but… not so much top 100 songs of ALL TIME material. I mean, I would have picked Amy Winehouse over Janelle Monae any day of the week. Songs also on the list that I have complete disagreements with include (but are not limited to): Jay-Z’s 99 Problems, Kanye West’s Gold Digger, Richard Thompson’s Black Lightning, Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road, I GOT RHYTHM (the most annoying jazz standard of all time)… I mean with names like this I’m surprised we don’t find Justin Bieber and Jimmy Buffet on here.

Just so you know, there are definitely some songs on here I totally agree with. For example, Dolly Parton’s Jolene is a mournful tune about lost love, and heck we all like some good old-style country, amiright? Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody is a given, obviously. That whole album is on my desert island top 5. I can’t even believe Funkadelic and Mahalia Jackson made it on here, but yes, they should totally be on here. The Beach Boys’ God Only Knows is easily one of my favorites (topped only by Surfer Girl, my absolute favorite guilty pleasure song of all time). Lena Horne’s Stormy Weather? Delightful. Louis Armstrong’s Stardust is very in the time, for sure, though I probably would have picked a different tune for him… That’s a hard one since he did so much for music (well, another blog for another day). ANYWAY.

Without further ado (and after the break), I pick apart the list vaguely but definitely, by taking artists I agree should be on the list but making suggestions as to which songs I would have chosen instead (TIME, are you listening?!). For the full list, see the very bottom of this blog entry or go to the source itself

Randor's Song of the Week: 10.16.11

"Hold the Line" by Major Lazer from the album Guns Don't Kill People... Lazers Do. 2009.
    Oh man, do I like this group. I had a tough time whittling down which specific tune to feature-- all the songs I've heard have their own distinct kick to make it interesting. "Hold the Line" might define the band best, though, especially when tied to its music video. So sorry, Toto, the title's not in Kansas anymore.
    The reggae dance-hall sound that pulses here paints just one side of the marvelous Lazer fuzzy dice. This humorously titled album rolls a Yahtzee with the thumping "Anything Goes," grooving "Cash Flow," jazzing (and comedic!) "Mary Jane," and finally electropopping "Keep It Goin' Louder." And I don't mean last-turn, 3rd-attempt, 4-dice-saved-up Yahtzee scavenge. I'm talkin' a right-out-the-barrel, still-unused-Chance-slot, double-points bonus Yahtzee game clincher. But who plays Yahtzee anymore? The fact stands that great songs build a great album. Besides, it's about time someone gave the Gorillaz a run for their money.

Poll Results, May2010

Here's what we got for the month of May.

A New Decade (+Up Top)

    Another ten years have passed. Music has long been grouped by the decade songs were released in, with various genres being associated with the appropriate era. The 80's perhaps are best known for new wave and disco, the 90's for grundge/alternative and bubble gum pop. While it may be a little early to declare a trend for the newly finished ten-year set, the most obvious rumblings I can see are the rise of heavy electronic beats, auto-tune, and Indie music.